


When the Feast is Finished and the Lamps Expire

by ShinSolo



Category: 30 Seconds to Mars
Genre: Adultery, M/M, POV Second Person, brief references to Matt/Libby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinSolo/pseuds/ShinSolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The light turns on in the kitchen right before you can figure out how to unlock the fancy locks on the back door. You curse under your breath, freeze up, not brave enough to turn around. It’s pretty pathetic that even though you knew you were going to be caught you still hadn’t managed to come up with a likely alibi, not a single answer to the question: What the fuck are you doing here?</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Feast is Finished and the Lamps Expire

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** “Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt thy lips and mine / There fell thy shadow . . . thy breath was shed / Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; / And I was desolate and sick of an old passion, / Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head: / I have been faithful to thee . . . in my fashion.” - Ernest Dowson

Why is it that when you’re trying to be quiet, you never can? Every floorboard creaks beneath your feet, every door hinge squeaks. You manage to tip over the cat, put your foot down right in the dogs water bowl. Well maybe not the last two, but surely everything else. You even trip over the fucking vacuum cleaner! So much for tact. And it’s sad--if this had been anyone else’s house at 3A.M. you’d have been able to pull yourself from the bed, tuck your dick back in your jeans, and leave without anyone being the wiser. But that’s the thing. It’s not anyone else’s house, it’s Jared’s.

 

The light turns on in the kitchen right before you can figure out how to unlock the fancy locks Jared’s installed on the back door. You curse under your breath, freeze up, not brave enough to turn around. It’s pretty pathetic that even though you knew you were going to be caught you still hadn’t managed to come up with a likely alibi, not a single answer to the question: What the fuck are you doing here? Briefly you wonder if he even remembers giving you a key, doubt whether or not he’d demand you return it if you were to remind him.

 

“Matt?”

 

Tomo. Your eyes widen and you turn around so quickly it takes your brain a second to catch up, like a raw egg spun on the counter top and suddenly stopped, only to begin again, a product of centrifugal force. He’d been the last person you ever suspected might be lingering among the dark halls of Jared Leto’s home at 3A.M., but there he is, standing barefoot in the kitchen, the side of his face red and eyes slightly swollen from sleep, or maybe from crying. It surprises you a little that you actually care.

 

“He’s not here… Don’t worry yourself,” he says, the words bitter as they leave his tongue, full of misplaced emotion. You know he’s not mad at you. He has no reason to be, does he? “He hasn’t got back yet.”

 

“Oh,” You bite into your bottom lip, ‘Got back yet’ still echoing inside your head. Tomo said the words like they should mean something, but they don’t. Not to you at least. You’re too relieved to know that you just might actually make it out of this alive, this time. “You gonna out me?”

 

Tomo shrugs as if he couldn’t care less and pushes his hair out of his face. There’s a hicky--no, a bite--on his throat, right below where the stubble on his neck ends. You know this also means something, but you have no idea what. You look away.

 

“He probably already knows. You’re never exactly quiet.”

 

“Yeah… Quiet…” you mutter the words, one hand running over your short hair and pulling at the skin at the back of your neck. A blush rises up from your jacket collar and you have a vague hope he’s talking about the vacuum cleaner even though you’ve got that feeling he doesn’t even know you’d ran into it. “Hey man, I’m…”

 

“What? Sorry?” Tomo actually rolls his eyes. “Look, it’s not me you need to be saying that shit too. Why should I care who you fuck? You and Shan are both big boys, I just don’t think you should be doing it here, that’s all.”

 

“Now wait a second!” You begin, wanting to fight but also knowing he’s right. In Jared’s eyes you’ve no right to be with anyone, let alone his own brother, let alone under his own roof. And if you’d felt 100% honest and guilt free about what you were doing you wouldn’t have been trying to sneak out in the first place, right? Right…

 

“It’s bad enough the two of you still can’t even admit to each other that you fucked up,” Tomo continues as if you’d never said anything. “Even shittier that you’re getting Shannon drunk and fucking him every other week. I know you’ve got Libby at your place and all, but you could at least have the decency to get a hotel room or something.”

 

“What’s it matter to you anyways?” You ask, suddenly wishing he’d just shut up and let you leave.

 

“Maybe because I’m usually the one having to cover for your ass when Jared gets to questioning who Shan’s new fuck toy is,” Tomo still didn’t seem to really care about the conversation, like he was only having it because he’d been told to do so, like he was bored with the topic at hand.

 

Silence falls between the two of you, neither really meeting the other’s gaze, but also not really looking away. The wind outside pushes against the windows, causes the house to creak ominously.

 

“Thought you said he probably already knows?”

 

Tomo shrugs again.

 

“He probably does. I’m a shit liar.”

 

A flood of light fills the house, pours though the windows, bounces off the mirrors, the glass of the television screen, then fades to black. Outside a car door slams. You hear Jared talking to himself or on the phone before you realize what Tomo must have known all along. And you suddenly realize that Tomo was there because this is what he’d been waiting on--Jared.

 

“Shit…” Your eyes widen and Tomo just laughs, more to himself than at your misfortune.

 

“If you wanna act like a pussy and hide, you can,” he says. A key turns in the lock on the front door. “I’ll distract him, you can sneak out the backdoor like a whore leaving a frat house. Like I said, I don’t really give a shit.”

 

You open your mouth to speak, but Tomo gives you a pointed look, telling you to just go away and leave without even having to say another word. You sigh and back away. Tomo turns the kitchen light off the same time Jared opens the front door, and the shadows of the dinning room hide you from anyone not already aware of your presence.

 

“Hey, Tome,” Jared says, his voice quiet, tired. You hear him even though you can’t see him. “Sorry it took me so long. Thought you’d have gone to sleep by now.”

 

“Nah, it’s okay,” Tomo answers him, his tone of voice the complete opposite of the one he’d been using with you not even ten seconds ago--no longer indifferent, no longer forced, as if nothing mattered to him more than knowing Jared was home and safe and there. Your stomach tightens a little at the soft sound of Jared taking Tomo into his arms and kissing him, a sound you know you weren’t meant to hear.

 

You swallow and look away, feeling like a peeping Tom, the Benedict Arnold the others all believe you to be. You can’t help but wonder how long it had been going on, stolen kisses between the two, Tomo ‘waiting up’ for Jared. You wonder how you’d never noticed it before. And jealousy rises inside of you at the thought that Jared might have even been fucking Tomo long before he’d asked you to leave. You clench your fists, take a step forward, ready to risk being seen for the sake of redemption.

 

But then you remember the way Shannon’s tongue had tasted in your mouth, the musky scent of his come, the way he’d laughed and covered your mouth with his hand as you came not even half an hour earlier.

 

You really have no ground to stand on, not even room to talk. And when Tomo leads Jared upstairs, their mouths hardly parting, hands already clenching at clothing, unbuttoning buttons, you do the only thing you can--you sneak out the back door and walk away.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Not the best thing I’ve ever written, I’ll admit that. Only took like maybe 2 hours from first word to last on notebook paper, another hour to type it up. Eh… Anyone else noticed that everything I write unplanned, for the simple sake of writing, is always in 2nd person? -hides- 
> 
> Not really sure where this came from--unless it’s a weird combination of sneaking out of my own house last night and a strange conversation I had with someone not too long ago about Matt--but I’d actually started writing it before I saw the prompt on kynxpirations that made me smile because it just… fit.
> 
> Much love,  
> ~Shin
> 
>  
> 
> Written 12/09/2009.


End file.
